I'm home!!!

Hubby and I went up to visit his mom over the holidays, with the dogs! That means we had to drive from San Diego to northern California - which is a drive of, at least, 10 hours. It was 10 hours up since we hit very little traffic outside LA and few "plugs" on I-5 in the San Joaquin valley. I decided, after the slow drive back down, that trucks create a lot of the plugs. We left on a Sunday to head up there and there are a LOT fewer trucks on the road on Sunday than on Thursday when we came back down. We enjoyed the visit with his mom, but the drive back was MUCH longer. I also dropped my cell phone at our lunch stop on Panoche Road. I didn't realize at the time but after calling it a few times and not hearing it in the car I realized I dropped it. I kind of remembered the road name and definitely remember that there was a restaurant called Apricot Tree so after a quick internet search I found the name, phone number and address of the restaurant. When I called them up they were very helpful. The manager, Carlos, had one of his crew, Jorge, look for my cell phone as he was emptying the trash cans in their parking lot. Jorge called me as he was looking in the park where I walked the dogs to find out more about the cell phone. As I was describing it to him he found it!! That was so nice of them to look for it for me! So ... if you're driving up or down I-5 in the San Joaquin valley take a rest stop at the Apricot Tree restaurant and give them some business. Nice folks need to be thanked and rewarded with business. Their apricot pie has some rave reviews from my mom-in-law and others on the web. I immediately shipped off two thank you cards with some reward money to them in appreciation of them taking the time to look for my phone and then helping to ship it to me.

Next up - another blog promo for a 90-blogs in 90-days Etsy seller ...

Featured ETSY artist #7 of 90 - SimplySaidBySarah

Sarah is the graphic artist behind SimplySaidBySarah. She has some wonderful sticky note pads in her store. Here is a great one for the holiday season:



And here's a fun memo pad, sticky pad and pen gift set all packaged up and ready to go:



You can see more of her graphic design items in her Etsy store at http://simplysaidbysarah.etsy.com

And if you want to see what she's up to read her blog at http://simplysaidbysarah.blogspot.com

Featured ETSY artist #6 of 90 - Celticgoddessjewelry

Andee is the woman behind Celtic Goddess Jewelry and she describes herself as a "Buddhist pagan living in the Orlando area. I sell celtic and pagan inspired jewelry, art and bath and body products."

In perusing her shop I found several beautiful pieces of jewelry. One is these "Ohm" earrings: . Isn't that just a wonderful, irridesent blue in the beads?

I'm also a big fan of charoite and just love the focal and wirewrapping in this necklace .

If you find these interesting you can see more at her shop at Celtic Goddess Jewelry @ Etsy

Want to learn more about Andee? Then check out her blog at http://buyindie.blogspot.com

Featured ETSY artist #5 of 90 - Indigoluna

I'm behind in my Etsy artist features so it's time to do some catch up! I'm featuring Rachel Kitterman who is Indigoluna on Etsy. She creates many varieties of art. She creates wonderful mandalas like this one:


She also creates gorgeous quilts such as this one:


She has been doing art with fabric for over a decade and in her own words she is an "art addict". She also "love paper, altered art, mixed-media, knitting, crocheting, jewelry, artist books, photography...pretty much, if it will hold still, I'll make art out of it." If you want to see more of her art that is for sale visit her Etsy store. If you want to know about Rachel read her blog at http://indigoluna.typepad.com

My Holiday Boutique Setup

I did my first Holiday Boutique last week. Here is my setup at the boutique.




It was an interesting experience though not profitable. But with all the inventory I made I'll be able to list many things in my Etsy store and put more on consignment at Gilianna's in La Jolla. So keep on eye on my website for frequent new additions!

Pictures of my home show setup

Well the home show turnout was not good - but I did remember to take pictures of how I set things up! I put an extension into my table and set everything up on that. Here are the pictures ...




Next pictures will be of my setup for a Holiday Boutique where I'm selling this Thursday. I'm laying things out now to figure out how much more to make and of what so back to the bead room for me!

Featured ETSY artist #4 of 90 - Earthcharms

You can read about Salyx' interests in many places on the net. She has a web page http://www.salyx.net/facts.html, a blog http://www.earth-charms.blogspot.com/, a myspace page http://www.myspace.com/salyx (but she does let you know myspace isn't her thing - LOL), a flickr account Salyz@flickr and, OF COURSE, an Etsy store Earthchamrs @ Etsy.

Salyx makes some fun and beautiful jewelry. This kyanite necklace is beautiful
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And these earrings are airy and girly in one package
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She has a LOT of chokers in her store as well. Heck - she's got 99 items in her store so you'll have lots of things to choose from no matter what you're interested in!

Featured ETSY artist #3 of 90 - Summersea

The next artist in this continuing series is Summersea aka Tracy from Massachusetts. If you like herbal then you should definitely peruse Summer Sea Herbs. I started smelling lavendar just by reading the description of the Organic Dried French Lavendar she has for sale.

And, with the cold and flu season upon us you can give her Cold and Flu Care Organic Herbal Loose Tea a try.

Tracy is a certified Herbalist and a practicing Green witch so she is very concerned with using high quality organic ingredients in her products. In her own words "Your body and spirit needs good, clean energy!".

In addition to making and supplying herbal products Tracy is the founder of the Etsy EarthPath Artisans Street Team. This is a group of Etsy sellers who have common spiritual beliefs. You can read more about Tracy in her blog at http://www.summerseaherbs.blogspot.com/

Featured ETSY artist - KreativeMindz

KreativeMindz is another Etsy store that features several artist. Aly and An-G sew and Beau (Aly's hubby) does woodworking. Their store has many different types of clothing and accessories. Do you have some aches and pains? Well they've got several styles of hot packs and my current favorite is this snowflake patter hotpack
The cover is removable so you can wash it when needed.

If you like goddess wraps (their term for very stylish and colorful hair wraps) then you can choose from a large selection in their store. I particularly liked the colors in this one .

And, of course, don't forget the wooden creations by Beau which you can view in the wooden kreationz sections of their store.

Want to see more? Check out the KreativeMindz Etsy store. Want to learn more about them? The check out their blog.

Featured ETSY artist - ContasBrasil

A bunch of Etsy folks are doing a blog challenge to learn more about one another and to help promote each other. The goal is to blog about a fellow challenger every day. As I read the list I was drawn to the name ContasBrasil since it's just an interesting name. Turns out this is an Etsy store with 4 designers! They are Suzy Wortberg, Bebê de Soares, Ana Vilas Boas and a new addition Sandra Fukelmann. As I browsed their store - ContasBrasil on ETSY - I was absolutely delighted by the wonderful colors they use. Check this out:


3V-Lagoon

Isn't it just gorgeous!

And if you love green (I do!) here's another beauty:

Green/Lavanda FIELDS

These are just a few wonderful designs from some very talented women so check out their store if you want to see more wonderful designs! And if you want to learn more about these women and see who they're featuring go check out their blog at http://contaskoeln.blogspot.com

Home show flopped but I'll be selling at a Holiday Boutique on 12/13!

My home show flopped. I think folks got very busy for the holidays since very few showed up. However, before the home show I heard about a local holiday boutique and was thinking about selling there if I could get enough inventory built up. Since I have a LOT of leftover inventory from my home show I'm definitely going to sell at the holiday boutique. If you're in San Diego and want to do some Christmas shopping here are the details:

Sunset Hills Elementary School Education Foundation
Annual Holiday Craft Fair
Thursday, December 13, 2007
5PM - 8PM
Sunset Hills Elementary School
9291 Oviedo Street
San Diego, CA 92129

Currently there are 20 vendors but they are actively recruiting for more!

Hope to see you there!

I've got a LOT of jewelry to photograph and list in my online shop. One of my latest creations is this bracelet made with beads from Ghana. A friend of mine was visiting her family in Ghana and brought back a bunch of beads. She didn't know what to do with them so she offered them to me and in trade I made a necklace/earring set for her and her mom using some of the beads. Here are the necklaces I made for her:



and here's the bracelet I just finished which uses more of the Ghana beads



It is currently for sale in my Etsy store.